How ECOWAS Lost Its Way

As former Senegalese President Macky Sall slyly tried to indefinitely postpone presidential elections in February this year, all eyes turned to the West African regional bloc—the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)—to see whether it would react to this clear flouting of democratic rules. Unsurprisingly, to many observers who had grown accustomed to ECOWAS’s behavior in the face of such democratic failures, it responded weakly. It did not pledge sanctions or restrictions on Sall but simply encouraged the announcement of a new election date.

Nonetheless, Sall was prevented from postponing the poll by Senegal’s own constitutional court, which showed more strength than ECOWAS has done in years and said it was imperative that the election take place before the end of Sall’s mandate on April 2.

Opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye, only released from prison days beforehand, emerged victorious in the first round. Sall left office disgraced: Not only did he fail to facilitate an election win for his chosen successor, but he will also be remembered more for threatening to undermine Senegalese democracy than for any of the vast infrastructure projects and development that he presided over during his 12 years in office.

However, while Sall is the clear loser, the democratic win for Senegal may provide a welcome boost to the increasingly inept ECOWAS. The defense of democracy in Senegal could make it easier to uphold such norms elsewhere in West Africa, reviving hopes that democracy can be maintained and remains relevant across a region that has witnessed multiple coups and coup attempts since the start of 2020.

While not exactly demonstrating ECOWAS’s capacity for good, the case of Senegal at least reaffirms that there are countries in West Africa that agree with the basic norms that ECOWAS claims to stand for, including the sanctity of democracy.

Sall’s election gambit was not the first attempt at a constitutional coup in West Africa, though it was perhaps one of the least successful. Recent events in Togo have threatened democracy in the region—and ECOWAS’s credibility—even more.

In 2019, Togo passed constitutional amendments to allow President Faure Gnassingbé to reset his electoral eligibility and stand for an additional two terms. Then, this March, his government passed a new constitution that shifts Togo from a presidential to a parliamentary system and cements the Gnassingbé family’s authority over the country. The new constitution was introduced in the lead-up to legislative elections, which clearly violates ECOWAS’s Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance. Article 2.1 of this document stipulates that “[n]o substantial modification shall be made to the electoral laws in the last six (6) months before the elections.”

But Togo’s new constitution eliminates universal suffrage for the presidential elections and removes term limits, allowing Gnassingbé, who will now take on the role of the president of the Council of Ministers—a role similar to that of a prime minister—to retain power indefinitely. Despite manipulating the law to effectively make Gnassingbé into a lifelong monarch of Togo, ECOWAS’s reaction has been almost entirely muted.

Neighboring countries have also fallen from grace. Benin’s opposition parties were effectively excluded from legislative polls in 2019 following the passage of strict eligibility laws and a boycott, and in its 2021 presidential election, several of the leading candidates were excluded from the race and sentenced to lengthy jail terms. (Opposition parties did participate in the following legislative election in 2023, but the ruling coalition won and retained power.)

In 2020, Guinean President Alpha Condé, who had already served two terms, amended the constitution to reset term limits. He was later reelected for another six-year term in an election marred by violence and irregularities.

The same year, in Ivory Coast, President Alassane Ouattara reneged on a plan not to stand for an unconstitutional third term after his chosen successor died. His third-term bid, much like Condé’s, was accompanied with widespread violence and unrest, though he did eventually win amid an opposition boycott.

The international and regional reaction to these political machinations and rewriting of constitutions has been minimal over the years. Condé’s reelection in 2020 was barely remarked upon by ECOWAS, and Ouattara has been one of the darlings of the bloc and the West since the start of his third term. A real attempt to crack down on abuses of democratic power has been conspicuously absent.

ECOWAS’s failure to do more is likely in part due to its awkward approach to democracy. The bloc is underpinned by the Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, adopted in 2001, which includes a mechanism for responding to undemocratic changes of power and requires democratic governance, elections, neutrality of the judiciary, and impartiality of the security forces in member states.

However, once leaders have held elections and can show that they have been chosen as president via the ballot box—however flawed that process may have been—the stringent stipulations of the protocol often go out the window. As such, a leader who undertakes a constitutional amendment or forces the judiciary’s hand to remain in office, or even one who seizes power by force, may subsequently be treated as a democratically mandated leader if he or she wins an election.

The bloc’s rapid reversal in its approach to leaders violating democratic norms once they have held elections is noteworthy. Togo’s Gnassingbé was elected as ECOWAS’s chairperson in 2017 despite presiding over a quasi-coup in 2005, sparking widespread riots and leading to the deaths of nearly 1,000 people. ECOWAS did sanction Togo during this time, but less than a year later, it declared that an election that allowed Gnassingbé to retain his power was free and fair. And there has been a deafening silence from ECOWAS amid the recent outcry that Togo has now become that same leader’s dynasty.

This inaction in the face of constitutional coups stands in stark contrast to ECOWAS’s immediate fierce condemnation of military coups in West Africa in recent years. Coups in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Guinea all saw ECOWAS impose sanctions and call for electoral timetables to be introduced, and the bloc even toyed with the idea of a military intervention in Niger. While these actions have largely been ineffectual, at least ECOWAS appeared interested in doing something to counteract such coups.

But ECOWAS’s task in dealing with military coups was made much harder by its woeful inaction in the face of constitutional coups, which pervaded the region in the preceding decades. This inertia has had an enormous impact on civilians in West Africa. Amid decades of flawed elections that have brought little more than bloodshed and quasi-authoritarian rule, confidence that democracy will enable populations to achieve change has diminished, almost by default creating an attraction to military rule.

Afrobarometer data from 36 countries surveyed in 2021 and 2022 shows that although two-thirds of Africans preferred democracy over any other form of government, only 38 percent of respondents were satisfied with the way that democracy functions in their country.

For example, the military coup in Guinea in 2021 was greeted with widespread celebrations even though it took place less than a year after Condé had won an unconstitutional third term. Residents had lost faith in the ability of their institutions to protect them from autocrats, so they required change by other means.

Of course, this constitutional-coup-followed-by-military-coup blueprint has not occurred everywhere. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger did not experience such a succession of events.

Yet, it is highly likely that the military leadership in these countries, as elsewhere, noted the lack of reaction to the weakening of democratic authority in the region. The failure of ECOWAS to do much to prevent constitutional coups and flagrant violations of democratic norms sent a message reverberating across the region that democracy was there to be challenged.

Not only were democratic norms being eroded—so too was the legitimacy of ECOWAS. Leaders could clearly see that the bloc would have no ground to stand on if it opposed a coup that was widely popular in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, or Guinea after having failed to crack down on incredibly unpopular efforts by supposedly democratically elected presidents to cling on to power in Guinea, Benin, and Togo.

Sure, ECOWAS has imposed sanctions and spoken out against military coups���but it has, as the coup leaders likely suspected, proven itself incapable of effectively standing up to any of these military regimes. Efforts to convince the ruling juntas of Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, or Niger to adhere to a transitional timetable and hold elections have been ineffectual at best, often proving downright embarrassing.

Coup leaders have periodically agreed to dates for elections only to rapidly renege and offer pathetic excuses for doing so. Burkina Faso’s junta recently extended military rule for at least another five years, while Mali is reportedly also discussing such a move despite ECOWAS lifting sanctions earlier this year in a misguided, clearly desperate effort to convince the country’s military leaders to return to the democratic fold.

These failings occurred likely at least in part because democratic norms had been eroded and weakened by ECOWAS’s inaction long before the string of military coups took place. Thus, where the bloc was already weakened by its apathy surrounding constitutional coups in the 2000s and 2010s, it has been thoroughly delegitimized by the spate of military coups of the 2020s. Increasingly, it seems that it has no might at all to stand up to any violation of its regulations in the region.

In August 2023, in a last-ditch effort to save itself, the bloc announced plans to launch an invasion of Niger to uphold democracy there after President Mohamed Bazoum was ousted. But the plan ultimately came to nothing, as Mali and Burkina Faso threw their weight behind the coup leaders in Niger, and the intervention force seemed to have little support in the wider region or in Niger itself.

As if to rub salt in the wound, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger announced in early 2024 that they would leave the bloc entirely, establishing the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) instead.

By then, the regional bloc seemed to be coming to the end of the road.

Faye’s election in Senegal may just provide a lifeline to ECOWAS. His arrival in power and the reinforcement of the country’s democratic cycle, though not remotely a result of ECOWAS assistance, will likely serve to boost democratic norms in the region once more. While ECOWAS may not be any stronger, this could make its job marginally easier.

Faye’s widespread popularity and his desire to encourage Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso to rejoin ECOWAS will also boost its reputation.

Yet ECOWAS’s long-term survival will hinge on its ability to learn from its failures. It will need to reconcile itself with the fact that it now encompasses a region where nearly one-third of its members are led by unelected juntas, and at least 1 in 5 member states are trying to withdraw. But mostly, the bloc will need to recognize that its willingness to acquiesce to democratic abuses and constitutional coups since the early 2010s has significantly contributed to the mess in which it now finds itself.

ECOWAS will need more than one firebrand democrat in Senegal to fix such deep-seated problems. Its ability to stand up to Gnassingbé—and potentially also Ouattara, who looks increasingly likely to seek an unconstitutional fourth term in 2025—will be crucial tests of its willingness to reform itself and face up to its responsibilities in West Africa.